Openness gives San Diego innovation lead, study says

"Washington University in St. Louis is one of the great universities, has one of the top 10 medical schools, but virtually no companies get started there," Walshok said. "And the people who want to start companies leave there to come here."

One answer is that funding modern tech-oriented companies entails a high degree of risk, something tradition-infused companies and financers hate, Walshok said.

"Think about how a large corporation or traditional bank manages their decision-making," Walshok said. She ticked off what a high-gain, high-risk tech startup faces with traditional financers: "They have multiple layers of committees, they do a careful risk assessment, they usually like to have collateral, they usually like to have a demonstration that there's already a market there, but you're creating a new market. They have no precedent."

Entrepreneurial groups emerging from a popular need and not a top-down approach appear to be most successful, said Harrington, who took part in the report.

"That's the real message here," Harrington said, describing the progress of a biotech-oriented networking organization in St. Louis compared to an information technology group that has become more active.

"The interesting thing is that the IT group grew up more organically," Harrington said. "They kind of self-formed, which was more like San Diego. I called Mary and said, I'd love for the NSF to give you another couple of grants to do five-year retrospectives based on the baselines you've created."

The study regions were chosen to give geographic balance, with West Coast, Midwest and East Coast regions represented, Walshok said. All areas receive significant amounts of federal research & development funding. Moreover, innovation and obstacles to innovation in these regions are less studied than the Boston and Silicon Valley areas, providing the opportunity for new insights.